Yeah, the Frenchies are adorable but they have a lot of health problems, as most purebreds do. Kate, no idea about the ones I found, since I just searched “chubby puppy” on Flickr. :> Actually, I do know the Rotty is a Rotty, and they also make me sad because of their health. The Husky looks like a Husky but what do I know, and I’m pretty sure the second one down is a Corgi mix… phew!

I was at the Guiness and Oyster festival yesterday and dog watching. (More a dog person, than a people person.) One Bernese Mountain puppy just made me want to die of its cuteness! God I miss my Paczki who passed of old age! (Dobbie/Lab)

Fillyjonk, I was being totally tongue-in-cheek there. I’m not anti-purebred, though I happen to have shelter mutts and don’t see myself ever getting any other kind of dog. (I do have a mad breed crush on Newfoundlands, so I can’t say for sure that if I ever had the space/lifestyle for one, I wouldn’t get one. Though I’d probably try to go through a rescue.)

The woman I got Solomon from was both a rescue coordinator and a breeder. In addition to doing corgi-mix rescue, she bred both corgis and Frenchies. I’ve never known anyone who knew more about dogs or cared more for them. And although Frenchies are, like pugs, prone to breathing problems, that doesn’t usually keep them from being perfectly happy and FUCKING ADORABLE. I loved the Frenchie videos, actually.

And I’m rambling because I never did weigh in on the Save Monty controversy elsewhere this week, and I was only trying to make a stupid little joke about that. But for the record, although I don’t feel a need for purebreds in my life (at this writing), and there are tons of unethical breeders and tons of lovely homeless mutts out there, there are also tons of responsible breeders who have good reasons for doing what they do, and tons of people who want purebred puppies for reasons I may not personally agree with but also don’t feel any compelling need to argue. To me, the important thing is how you care for a dog once you’ve got it.

So what do you think of chubby cats? I’ve got one. His name is Chomsky (that do says a little about my political stand to of course)

People are constantly complaining about how fat he is. I have wondered from time to time if weight in animals is the same as for humans. That when they can live inside a house and have all the food they like they’re gonna put on some half pounds. And even if they live longer then cats in the wild people will still say they’re unhealthy. Cause people today in the “modern” world can’t tolerate fat. Not even in cats.

And since I thought he was unhealthy as he was chubby I thought I needed to put him on a diet… so now he has binged.

And the first thing people comment on when they see him is his fat. Brings some resemblance huh? :D

Kate, I didn’t even know there’d been a controversy! Obviously I’ve got mixed feelings about non-mixed breeds, but I certainly wouldn’t judge anyone who had one (and I know you wouldn’t either, and that you were kidding). Personally, I will be looking for a mutt, because purebreds’ health problems break my heart (not that mutts are immune by any means). If I had the chance to rescue a purebred, though, you know I’d be right on that.

Klara, interesting that the diet made your cat fatter — just like people! Housecats tend to eat well and be pretty sedentary, so sure, some of them will get chubby; the fact that others won’t is a good indicator that hey, there are genetic factors at work! I’m no vet, but I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that fat cats have more health problems, as long as they’re running and playing and eating something besides people food. HAES for kitties!

Puppies are cute, but I’m more of a cat person. Hubby and I are owned by 2 kitties, a fuzzy orange one he got from a farm who is called Fat Cat (originally named Scruffy but Fat Cat fits him better, he weighs about 16 lbs). Then there is Slick (originally named Boots, he’s orange with white feet), who is short-haired and really slick. He also weighs about 16 lbs, in spite of the fact that he’s had all but 7 teeth removed and will only eat dry cat food. He was a shelter kitteh. Fat Cat sleeps on my husband’s pillow, wrapped around his head, and Slick sleeps on the foot of the bed or on the floor or wherever else he happens to find comfortable at the time.
The only dog I ever owned was a German Shepherd/wolf mix, and while he was good with women and some men, he hated other dogs and the only cat he tolerated was my Shadow (a Russian Blue that he grew up with).

Puppies are cute…….awwww. Now how about some kitten pics? Kittens are cuter! So sez me. ;)

My cats often make me think about weight politics. Kinda funny. Both eat the same diet, get the same amount of exercise, but one is slim and one is fat. Luckily my vet (so far) hasn’t tried to push me around about the weight issue – but even if it comes to that, I’m NOT putting Tubby Tabby on a diet! The very fact that they live the same lifestyle is pretty well living proof that physical size is NOT about lifestyle! (In fact, Tubby Tabby is the strong, powerful one, who usually does the chasing when they play.)

Fillijonk and Dorianne and vesta44: I like the way you’re speaking. It was so sad when I was at the wet and the “nurse” their giving Chomsky his shots said he definitely needed to lose weight. She was – I think – fat herself and I felt so sad for her.

Even more so for the nurses on the public clinics here. There was a huge campaign over them some years ago with posters saying: “are you overweight?” and how bad it was for you. I saw a fat nurse working there and I felt so so so sad. How awful to need to help people there with weight and be fat oneself. Gah! The world so needs HAES!

klara – yeah, it must be especially hard on fat nurses to see that stuff…..after spending two weeks in the hospital this year, I learned that nurses (including the fat ones, yup) already do more physical labour than most people I know! And in my area, they are all on twelve hour shifts. What other evidence does the anti-fat brigade need?

“a balanced diet and regular exercise will not produce long-term weight loss in most people. So as long as we keep the focus on weight loss instead of behavioral changes and health benefits, we’re barking up the wrong tree”

(And the purebred thing doesn’t bother me, because when I see a dog who’s obviously a certain breed, I know I can’t make assumptions about how the dog was bred or how the current owner got it. I have a Rottie myself, but i got her from a shelter after her previous owner ditched her.)

I had a fat-acceptance moment with a friend’s puppy the other day. The puppy was absolutely adorable, and so round and fat the cuteness was almost unbearable. I said something about it, using the word “fat,” and the friend was a little put out because she thought I was criticizing! I reassured her that I meant it in the most positive sense (see unbearable cuteness), that her puppy was obviously the picture of health, and besides, normal growth patterns include cycles of fattening up and then growing bigger. Another friend piped up saying, “oh, I didn’t know that!” I guess my mom didn’t either when she put my sister on a diet at age 10. That was just puppy fat too.

I am not a dog person, but my god, those are cute! And the last one especially looks like it’s getting such joy out of life.

And a bit of a question – I was at the vet’s the other day (I am owned by the clumsiest, bossiest, puffiest cat in existence), and they had a poster up on ideal weight in cats and dogs. For both, they said that you should be able to see the ribs. Is that accurate? It sounds kinda unhealthy to me, but I’m not a veterinarian…

Alix, I’ve heard the “should see ribs” thing in regards to pets, but the only pets that look okay to me seeing ribs are dogs such as grayhounds and whippets and such. Any other dog looks starved if their ribs are showing.

My kitties all free feed both the food I put out and any wildlife they can catch and they all range in sizes. Scrapper cat has gotten massive lately, but it is all muscle and I KNOW the vet would have I hissy fit if they weighed him. He’s almost as heavy as my Maine Coon Rum Tum who weighs in at close to 20 lbs. Several years ago when I was still in the diet mentality, I decided my females needed to go on diet Iams. End result, they gained weight and poor Adric, my male kitty almost starved to death. No more dieting for my fur kids.

“I was at the vet’s the other day (I am owned by the clumsiest, bossiest, puffiest cat in existence), and they had a poster up on ideal weight in cats and dogs. For both, they said that you should be able to see the ribs.”

I’m not a veterinarian or anything, but that sounds a bit weird. As someone who watches those ‘animal cops’ type of shows, whenever they picked up abused or abandoned animals, they’d comment on how the ribs on the animal were showing and how bad that was. I agree with JeanC that dogs a la The Greyhound may be a healthy with their ribs showing, but smaller, stockier dogs such as Welsh Corgis probably wouldn’t be.

“Yeah, the Frenchies are adorable but they have a lot of health problems, as most purebreds do.”

I love what you normally have to say, FJ, but this statement lacks the usual kind of rigour you grant to your regular blogging. Yes, some pure-bred dogs are “puppy-farmed” in appalling conditions and have had shocking breeding. Yes, there are certainly some breeds, like bulldogs, who have been bred over decades beyond good anatomical functionality, or are so in-bred that they have certain health problems pretty much endemic to the breed.

However, to claim that *most* pure-bred dogs have health problems (and contrasting that by implication to mutts) is a bit of a step too far, I think. I haven’t studied up on it, but I’m pretty sure the chasm is not as yawning as people might believe, and there may not even be a chasm with regard to relative healthiness levels between mutts and purebreds.

Those pure-bred puppy farmers who don’t care what syndromes the parent animals are passing to their offspring are at least somewhat offset by the thousands of responsible breeders who simply won’t breed from a dog if there is any question of a genetic weakness. And being a mutt does not confer immunity to inherited problems – there is no such thing as “hybrid vigour” within a breed. Pure-bred German Shepherds and Labradors are at risk of hip dysplasia – so too are German Shepherd/Lab crosses, or mutts that have inherited the gene.

If I was concerned solely about good health for a dog, I would most definitely get a pure-bred one from a responsible breeder with good documented genetic lines who has a track-record of good practice. Pound dogs from unknown parents and backyard breeds that you find in the local rag are *more* likely to have health problems than responsibly-bred purebreds. Of course, pound dogs deserve rescue and all the love that you can give them, despite any potential health issues. And even if a pure breed has significant recognised problems, if the breed authorities themselves are attempting to deal with them (and I will admit that a few have been *slow* to do so), then even those “risky” purebred dogs are worthy of our love and care as well.

But there really really are a lot of problems with purebred dogs – especially the Kennel-club certified show-dog type dogs. So many breeds of show dogs are not bred for functionality (as in able to walk without pain, as in bred without predictable genetic problems) but bred to a standard of … I don’t know – decorativeness? Hence the problem of bulldogs having their snouts bred out of the line until they’re completely flat-faced and suffer from their palates being crowded down their throats. Other problems include Rhodesian Ridgebacks being bred for more and more prominent ridges despite the fact that the ridges are associated with (dermal sinusoid?) a disease that leaves the spinal cord open through the skin. Many King Charles Cavalier spaniels end up with brains too big for their skulls, and die in agony. German Shepherds are bred for weak back legs because judges at dog shows like to see them shimmy.
This is not the result of puppy mills – this is the result of fashion in dog breeding. Bulldogs had longer snouts a hundred years ago – but snouts weren’t as cute as the flat-faced look, so the dogs were purpose -bred and the snouty puppies killed so as not to sully the line. Same with the Ridgebacks – ridgeless puppies are culled at birth in order to keep the bloodlines pure.

Sorry – I know this was an OT and OTT rant – but I really feel strongly about this issue. I’ve never been a great fan of eugenics, whether in people or in puppies.